Google uses Siri scapegoat to avoid anti-competitive charges

Eric Schmidt has suggested that Apple's Siri voice search technology is a significant threat to Google's dominance as the go-to search engine, especially when it comes to sourcing specific information.

During another session with U.S. senators which were asking for information regarding Google's alleged anti-competitiveness, Schmidt cited Apple's Siri as the main threat to the search behemoth, stating that:

"Even in the few weeks since the hearing, Apple has launched an entirely new approach to search technology with Siri, its voice-activated search and task-completion service built into the iPhone 4S."

He then went on to say that he was wrong when, earlier in the year, he denied that Apple were a "competitive threat": "My statement was clearly wrong," he said. "Apple’s Siri is a significant development... in search.

Although it's true that Siri does offer a new and innovative experience to many mobile internet users, although not always performing as it should, Schmidt's comments are clearly loaded, and have an agenda all of their own.

When else, apart from in front of a Senate antitrust subcommittee, would you find a chairman and former chief executive of a company stating how a worried his company is by a competitor?

Despite Apple's innovation, his comments, it seems, are designed to deflect from Google and its massive monopoly. Siri perhaps, in time, will be a force to be reckoned with in terms of search, but any reference to that from Google in this context, should be taken very lightly.